Time flies, and it only seems like yesterday we were writing about the new American Professional guitars, a reimagined overhaul of the previous long-running American Standard that produced some of the best playing and sounding Fender guitars – which we’d not hesitate to recommend to readers and friends alike. In some ways, then, it’s a bit of a surprise that Fender has now replaced that line with these Mk II versions.
If you’re expecting a completely new operating system, you’ll be disappointed: the American Professional II is more like a firmware upgrade. Perhaps that’s a little harsh, though, because there are numerous features that differentiate II from I. Obviously, there are different colours, some of which might be quite polarising, particularly to those of us who’ve grown up with the classic and custom colour hues. More fundamentally, lightweight ash is now hard to source – certainly in the quantities that Fender consumes – and is replaced by roasted pine as used right back at the start of the Fender story (although it
